Student Arrested After Live-Streaming Movie Premiere On Facebook

Image courtesy of Eric BEAUME

Usually, when you hear of a video pirate getting caught, it’s because of vigilant theater staff or annoyed theatergoers, but it was a piracy-monitoring service in India that resulted in a college student from Indiana being arrested for live-streaming a movie premiere from inside a Chicago theater.

TorrentFreak reports that a Valparaiso University student allegedly was using his phone to live-stream the premiere of Indian film A Aa to anyone watching on Facebook, when police showed up and shut down his illegal broadcast.

Under the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act it is a criminal offense to record or broadcast a film from a movie theater.

Bluesky Cinemas, the distribution company behind the film, says it was notified of the infringement by an anti-piracy monitoring firm in India.

After removing the live stream link from Facebook, the distribution company’s anti-piracy team contacted the Chicago cinema’s staff, who then called the police.

In all, just a few minutes of the film were actually streamed, and according to Bluesky the content was successfully deleted from the Internet.

“[The] student was caught red-handed with [the] content,” Bluesky said in a statement. “Recording and sharing unauthorized video in social media is also a part of cybercrime.”

Media companies have gotten serious about copyright and piracy issues since the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act was enacted.

Most recently, HBO began ramping up its anti-piracy efforts since the new season of Game of Thrones debuted. The company reportedly enlisted anti-piracy partner IP Echelon to issue thousands of copyright infringement warnings to ISPs, urging them to take action against alleged pirates.

Student Arrested In U.S. For Live Streaming A Movie On Facebook [TorrentFreak]

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